The Planet Earth is accurately described as an "oblate spheroid" and is neither round nor flat.

In common use, "round" is an alternative to "flat". Then it is either round of flat, by definition.

A circle is round, a ball is spherical.

I wonder what it is in 11 dimensions?

I thought we were up to 16 dimensions?

I thought it was 11 dimensions too - 4 'normal everyday' spacetime and rest curled up and invisible to us

Yes, that is one of the later models based on string theory and Brane theory of the universe.From Wikipedia:One such theory is the 11-dimensional M-theory, which requires spacetime to have eleven dimensions, as opposed to the usual three spatial dimensions and the fourth dimension of time. The original string theories from the 1980s describe special cases of M-theory where the eleventh dimension is a very small circle or a line, and if these formulations are considered as fundamental, then string theory requires ten dimensions. But the theory also describes universes like ours, with four observable spacetime dimensions, as well as universes with up to 10 flat space dimensions, and also cases where the position in some of the dimensions is described by a complex number rather than a real number. The notion of spacetime dimension is not fixed in string theory: it is best thought of as different in different circumstances.

Getting back on to the subject I take great photos with My I phone, I also have taken some bad ones. Many bad ones have been the fault of my Equipment as well as the operator. Lets be honest, not every image we shoot comes out perfect. We all are guilty of bad pictures and we only show the world the good stuff

I believe that when people blindly blurt out, "Your camera takes great pictures" they assume you are the one in control but believe that your equipment helps take better pictures. If I could get the same quality pictures from my Iphone as I can from my 5D3 then I wasted allot of money on my 5D3.

The key is use what you have and with lesser equipment you will have a good chance of a producing a great photo. With great equipment you have a better chance of getting the great photo. This is due to your better equipment's features and ability to use it. Therefore Good Cameras do take better pictures.

Good points from a basic approach, but we're supposed to list our pet peeves...if you want to get literal about the subject of the thread

Did aliens place the mirrors on the Moon which have allowed astronomers to measure the distance to within millimeters accuracy with lasers? Or did NASA astronauts? Which is the more plausible possibility? Somebody put them up there. I doubt the aliens would have wanted to help out our scientists very much...Or did they? Nah...

I guess we come back to the same question. How do you know that there are mirrors? I suppose one can surely spot the mirrors in some way if they are there, but have you spotted them yourself? I have no personal experiences that would make me 100% sure that those mirrors exist. I don't know if they do.

Who is responsible for 9/11? I don't know. Do Asian men really have tiny dicks? I don't know and I don't really even care.Does my wife enjoy living with me? I don't know, but I hope she does.Are my kids really mine? I believe they are, but I don't really know.

So, let me get this straight. Unless you experience something personally, then you doubt it exists. That leaves a lot of the world, and its people, for you to doubt their existence. I'm sorry that you're not sure your kids are really yours, but there are DNA tests for that. Of course, since you're not a scientist, that would mean you could not "experience" the actual testing procedure for yourself...so you are right...there's a lot you will never know. However, there's a lot I DO know...because I pay attention, I learn, I stay informed, I don't insert my head in the sand. I don't need to be omnipresent and omnipotent to know that you are on the other end of this computer screen, typing back at me. The fact that you don't know if I exist or not, because you are not in the same room with me, is very humorous to me!!

How do we 'know' anything? Most of you assume you have a brain in your head...but have you actually checked? Where's your proof? Speaking for myself, I've checked...and put the evidence out there for everyone to see, right to the left of my words.

That photo could be faked, I need to dig it out with a shovel before I'll believe you have a brain!

The Planet Earth is accurately described as an "oblate spheroid" and is neither round nor flat.

Thank you for pointing this out. Now if we only had a time machine we could travel back to the Vikings and tell them the world is really almost a sphere, rather than an actual sphere. I'm sure they would be very surprised and delighted...before they decided to kill you and rob you of all your gold!

Hi Neuro.Thanks for the laugh.My misses looked in my ear because she thought I just had a brainless moment, she couldn't see straight through, does that count as proof? Damn, just had a thought, it might just have been my ear drums stopped the light! Ooh Ooh please sir does having a thought count as proof?

How do we 'know' anything? Most of you assume you have a brain in your head...but have you actually checked? Where's your proof? Speaking for myself, I've checked...and put the evidence out there for everyone to see, right to the left of my words.

Senior year of high school, I had a field project for environmental science where you'd get extra credit if you took photos of where you were doing your project on. I included pictures of birds in flight that I took there and when I gave it to my teacher, he asked, "Did you take these photos?" I replied, "Yes" as girl one exclaimed, "Whoa you took those photos? I thought you got them off the internet!!"

And then last year when I was shooting an outdoor sports tournament with my 70-200mm 2.8 IS II mounted on my Rebel XSi, one girl who also was shooting with a Rebel but with a ef-s70-300mm sharply told me, "You don't need that big of a lens to shoot" Which is funny because her lens is longer than mine. I needed the 2.8 when it got dark though.

How do we 'know' anything? Most of you assume you have a brain in your head...but have you actually checked? Where's your proof? Speaking for myself, I've checked...and put the evidence out there for everyone to see, right to the left of my words.

How do we know that is an image of YOUR brain? How do we know that you are who your say you are? For all we know you are a Nikon spy sent to gather information on what is happening in the Canon Rumor world! And if I go to your house, will I see pelican cases filled with Nikon gear, not Canon gear. Did you fake those photos also? You heard it here first: Neuro is an extremely crafty spy who actually works for Nikon Hard to believe, isnt it? Of course, this is only a rumor. I dont have any facts to support this theory . I have to leave now. I believe there is some delicious food waiting for me.

Actually, we might take this as an opportunity to start weeding out some of the fauxtographers that are flooding the streets. How about a reply along the lines of, "Yes I do. I have $XXXXXXXX invested in my gear and anyone else wanting to take comparable photos to mine will need to spend as much."

This is a double edge sword to the uninitiated photographer-want-to-be. On the one hand, the price tag might discourage him enough to give up and go away. On the other hand, he might be just stupid enough to sell his Rebel and go out and drop $10,000 on a 1DX and a couple of L lenses. At which point the joke is on him because he'll be completely befuddled as to why he's still not taking great pictures.

And you sound awfully paranoid about competition.

I think attitudes like above are what somewhat give photographers a bad name (unfriendly, stand offish, cutthroat).

Or maybe he turns out to have not been a sucky as you think just because he was shooting with a Rebel and seemed to be relatively new and maybe in a few months he is handily out shooting you? And maybe he is loving his new camera because he loves sports photography and he ends up glad that he went from his Rebel + 18-135 to a 7D/5D3/1D4/1DX + 70-200 2.8 or 300 f4 or whatnot? Who knows.

Oh come one man, where's your sense of humor? That was meant as a bit of tongue in cheek. First of all, I have no competition. I only shoot for myself, family, and friends, and am lucky enough to have engaged with some fabulous mentors who constantly challenge me through direct and honest criticism of my work. I don't need to compare myself to anyone but myself.

As a matter of fact, I teach an adult education photography class several times a year in my community. I get nothing more than a small token payment for the effort. I do it because I enjoy passing on knowledge and experience to other people who really want to improve their skills. So if I was paranoid about any potential competition I wouldn't be basically giving it away.

But my main area of interest is portraiture. I don't know about the rest of the genre but the undeniable fact is that in the portrait arena, the streets are indeed flooded with mother-with-camera photographer wannabes who think they are the bees knees but couldn't produce a well composed, well lit shot if their life depended on it. But they think because they put that fancy DSLR in to one of the auto modes that they really didn't understand, and shot what was really a mediocre picture of their kid but one that all their Facebook friends "oohed" and "aahed" over, that that qualifies them to start passing out business cards. They go around selling cheap sessions for $100 with a CD of 100 images, depressing the market for the highly qualified artists who really do deserve the title. The real pro that has invested several tens of thousands of dollars in gear and many years of toil perfecting their craft are constantly defending their prices because a day doesn't go buy that they don't have to justify that higher price when "Magic Butterflies and Rainbows" baby photographer down the street, who just got a Rebel for her birthday, will shoot a newborn session for $50. And "Magic Butterflies and Rainbows" also hasn't paid any business license fees, isn't declaring her income and paying income and self-employment tax on it, isn't carrying equipment or liability insurance, isn't taking the usual precautions that a real pro would in having backup gear in case something breaks during the shoot, etc etc etc. So not only is "Magic Butterflies and Rainbows" basically giving it away, she is undercutting the working pros by not carrying any of the overhead expense that a real pro and legitimate business would.

Now, I know a lot of fabulous portrait shooters who started just like that. But at some point, they woke up to the fact that they had only taken one step on a journey of several thousand. So they buckled down and educated themselves, learned to use the gear they had to maximum effect, studied lighting, composition, perfected their editing skills, etc and in the end could turn out a really high end product. And I admire the work and the journey they've undertaken. Many of them are my friends.

My problem is not with them. It's with the other 95% of them that continue to market themselves as portrait photographers while simultaneously turning out garbage at garbage prices.

Every top notch portrait shooter I know who use to be able to earn a decent living in the business sees, experiences and suffers from this phenomenon every single day.

How do we 'know' anything? Most of you assume you have a brain in your head...but have you actually checked? Where's your proof? Speaking for myself, I've checked...and put the evidence out there for everyone to see, right to the left of my words.

I agree "how do we know anything" ... but how do we know its your brain?

How do we 'know' anything? Most of you assume you have a brain in your head...but have you actually checked? Where's your proof? Speaking for myself, I've checked...and put the evidence out there for everyone to see, right to the left of my words.

I agree "how do we know anything" ... but how do we know its your brain?